And I think that’s something to embrace.” -Jason Rosenberg, member of ACT UP and Julius’ patron “It’s what a community space should look like…you get to meet some of our queer elders and have conversations with people who have been in that same seat for 30 years or more. That history is important, says Ken Lustbader, one of the founders and directors of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, which successfully nominated Julius’ to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The bar’s tiny kitchen still serves the same hamburgers that a guidebook author called “peerless” in 1959. Framed black-and-white photos on the wall have been up for at least 75 years, and probably longer-they appear in the background of a picture that the photographer Weegee took at the bar in 1945.Įven the menu is old. Julius’ is practically a museum, from the wagon-wheel chandeliers to the Jacob Ruppert Brewery barrels that support the century-old oak bar. Its long history is evident in the physical space.
Today, Julius’ has been in operation for some 150-plus years, having opened in the 1860s and remained in business throughout the entire twentieth century. Julius’, at the corner of Waverly Place and West 10th Street, New York City / Photo by dbimages, Alamy
Only in June of this year did the Supreme Court rule on another case that, if decided differently, could have endangered any queer or trans person who dared to declare their identity openly in a hostile space. But the message they espoused-that they had the right not just to exist in public spaces, but to be out in those spaces-is one that still resonates. The Mattachine Society never successfully filed a discrimination suit based on the Sip-In, though in a related case the following year, a state court ruled that bars could not be shut down for the presence of homosexuality alone. A Village Voice photographer, Fred McDarrah, captured the moment in an iconic photograph that still hangs at Julius’ today. The bartender quickly covered a glass with his hand, indicating his refusal to serve them. The activists ordered their drinks, then stated they were gay. Thank You! We've received your email address, and soon you will start getting exclusive offers and news from Wine Enthusiast. When the business inevitably declined to serve them, they would file a complaint with the State Liquor Authority, forcing the state to recognize that refusing to serve gay patrons was a violation of their civil rights. They would visit a bar, announce they were gay, and request a drink. Mattachine, led by president Dick Leitsch, was out to solve a problem: though the State Liquor Authority had no regulation against serving gay people in bars, it did prohibit establishments from serving “disorderly” patrons-and all gay people were considered, by interpretation, disorderly. The Sip-In was the brainchild of the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights group. And in April 1966, three years before the famed riots at nearby Stonewall that many historians mark as the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, Julius’ was the site of a very different rebellion: a “Sip-In.” Not the iconic Stonewall Inn, but Julius’.Īt the corner of Waverly Place and West 10th Street, Julius’ is the oldest gay bar in New York City. Once, about a half a century ago, it found itself at the epicenter of an unprecedented protest asserting gay people’s right to gather in public spaces without police harassment. The risks of police raids deterred some men from stepping into a gay bathhouse, but ultimately the need for intimate companionship outweighed the danger posed by police.In the heart of the West Village, steps from the Christopher Street train station, stands a historic gay bar. In the 1800s, police in Paris raided a bathhouse and arrested six.Īs institutions, bathhouses gained popularity in the last century, in part due to growing gay populations lacking places where they could publicly gather. In the late 1400s, police in Florence, Italy, monitored homosexual activity and “suspect boys” at bathhouses. The tradition of gay male bathing spaces dates back to the 15th century - and more gender-neutral bathing is recorded as early as 6 BC. This marked the first recorded time that police raided a gay bathhouse in America, but it certainly wasn’t the last. Eleven people were charged with felonies, and 37 were eventually arrested. In later testimony, police reported witnessing anal sex. Infiltrating the establishment, they were aghast. Police had been spying on the men at The Ariston Hotel Baths for days.